


coercing me to dance

by kidlightnings (revolver)



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Dominant Asra, Explicit Consent, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Oral Sex, Other, Polyamory, that poor fucking desk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/pseuds/kidlightnings
Summary: "You wanted to lie to her, you didn’t want to tell her what was going to happen, in her own city."Asra has hard conversations in his future, and reconciliations. Nadia got grudging truths, and Julian never got a real apology. Asra plans to finally fix that. Devolves into Asrian smut.





	1. vision

**Author's Note:**

> Borrows some content from Julian's route, but set after Asra's upright ending. Ky is my apprentice, but only appears briefly.

Her words, the woman he’d once called apprentice, echoed in his ears, and he felt red rising to his face. She wasn’t wrong. Even now, the intensity of wanting to just leave welled up like a sickly fountain in his chest. Much like the fountain he was wasting time at.

He’d traveled so much in the past through this fountain. It would be so easy-

“Asra!” Nadia’s voice, smooth, clear, carried across the courtyard.

He looked up, dispelling his thoughts.

“I hadn’t expected you,” Nadia said, coming to sit next to him on the edge with a smile. “But, it is always a pleasure.”

“Nadia, just who I was hoping to see!” Asra attempted to mirror her expression, but it felt weak.

She regarded him with a raised brow. “It’s sudden, is everything all right?”

He was silent a moment. It wasn’t too late to turn this into a regular social call, though, given his absence, an extraordinarily overdue one

“I- I needed to speak with you,” he said, and a million justifications arose to his own defense. “About what happened, with the Masquerade.”

“What happened?” Nadia asked, eyes light. “How we freed the city from certain destruction? Kept the plague at bay? Found the pieces of our lives again? Quite a tale for the ages!”

Asra averted his eyes. “In a manner of speaking, but..”

Nadia searched him. He imagined he could see her mark glowing at the intensity of her gaze.

“But I haven’t been entirely honest about everything.”

Nadia’s expression was a practiced neutral. “Yes?” she plied.

“I’ve- I left some things out. I wasn’t-” He took a moment, willing his breathing to calm. “I wasn’t going to tell you any of that. I wanted to do it on my own.” He left unspoken or maybe do nothing, a heavy stone in his stomach.

“But, you didn’t,” she said, voice uncertain. “Why would you tell me this?”

“Ky was the only reason I told you at all, told you about the ritual, Ky was the only reason we made it in time to prepare. She forced my hand. She wouldn’t let it be, she wouldn’t let us stay away. I- I hadn’t planned to bring her back,” he said, words coming quickly.

“You were going to.. Leave?” she asked. The tone cracked to something darker. 

His eyes darted to meet hers then withered. It wasn’t even anger. Asra knew that feeling. He knew sadness, he knew loneliness. He was quiet for longer than he intended to be.

“Why?” she asked.

“I was afraid.” His voice was thick, deliberate as he forced the words out.

“Afraid? For Ky?”

“For Ky.. for what might happen if we came back, for everyone to remember, for what would happen if we failed, for what success would even mean,” he said.

The murky darkness of what ifs that pervaded that night. Asra remembered more than most of them, he would have guessed at that time, but there were still holes, and the ground surrounding them was dark enough as it was.

Asra felt his insides writhe in the silence

“A magician afraid of the unknown,” Nadia said after a long moment. A secret smile passed her lips briefly.

“If I failed.. At least nobody else-” he started, but Nadia cut him off.

“Everybody else! The city, everyone would have suffered for it. The plague would have returned, and we’d have been in the dark for so much longer. The Devil was on the verge of altering our world beyond what perhaps even all of us together could have righted. What you and Ky found, in the desert, what you found about that night- it- we needed it.”

Asra cowed, exhaled. “You- you’re right. Of course you’re right. I just couldn’t see it then.”

He looked back to meet her eyes again, forced himself to hold her gaze. He wanted so badly just to tip back into the fountain and slip away.

“I couldn’t-” he started, but the words wilted on his tongue. “She couldn’t live with that any longer,” he finished.

“She made you come?” Nadia asked. Her brows knitted together.

His face heated at the implication. “She suggested,” he said. Picked at it. Sighed over it. Pointed to it in the face of his reluctance to go to the palace for any kind of social visits.

It really was just the two of them, in their own little world if he had his way about it. It felt sour, cold, hollow as he sank into the feeling.

Nadia let the silence build, but looked away herself, eyes following the clouds that cast long shadows across the lush green of the gardens, deepend the shade into the spaces between the leaves. Asra knew that tree. He couldn’t look there, either. His eyes were drawn into the darkness where he had poured his heart as the city died around them.

“Were you angry with me?” Nadia finally asked.

He nearly jumped. His normally smooth composure, that aura he cultivated so carefully of knowing. Just knowing, had been broken since he’d left that morning.

“Angry? With you? Why?” he asked.

“For bringing you, her, Julian, everyone together? For putting her here, that she could fall to such a fate? For letting the city run amok while my husband celebrated?”

Asra brought one of his hands that had been gripping the lip of the fountain to his chest. “No- no, I wasn’t- I wasn’t angry with you, I was angry with Ilya-”

“Not even the slightest?” Nadia pressed, and he didn’t have to imagine the white piercing through her skin.

“Not even the slightest,” he said. His voice had started steady, but wavered as he continued. “Even Ilya.. I shouldn’t have- He didn’t deserve.. What I did to him.”

Nadia looked away again, lips turning down. “But I’m not who should be hearing that.”

If he could wilt further, Asra did. “I know,” he said, voice barely over a whisper. How utterly convenient for him, given the doctor’s new post at the palace.

Nadia leaned in slightly. “Asra.. once, we were friends. I’ll admit that I don’t recall it, not clearly, but I feel it. I hear of it, in dreams and in tales. I find pieces of it more and more. Perhaps we can be again,” she said. “But you have to open up.”

Asra lifted his eyes. “I am, I will.”

Lips pressing in a firm line, Nadia regarded him.

“On my own.”

Her mouth loosened and the edges twitched up in a quick movement.

“Why don’t you stay at the palace a while?” she asked. “I think we might have more to talk about,” she said, “but perhaps on better terms.”

Asra could feel cold release from his chest, trickle, it felt, down his body and away. “I’d like that.”


	2. revision

This wasn’t how Asra had planned to have this conversation. He’d had a plan, sort of. Maybe never, but, at least, not this way, over lunch at the palace. So he didn’t. Ky caught his eye, dressed in favors from Nadia as they caught up, warmly, over a cold noodle dish, chilled to stave off the humidity that made even the thinnest gauze feel damp and heavy.

Even so long after, and with all of their history, it felt so new, so fresh. Her look made his heart catch in his throat. His cheeks tinted darker as that gaze lingered. Maybe later, later he’d have to do something about it, if she didn’t first.

For the immediate moment, though, he excused himself. It was a fleeting thought that maybe he didn’t deserve that yet. He hadn’t accomplished everything here he’d come to do. It wasn’t exactly his decision not to have this talk, when he’d have to be a fool to notice that Julian was scarce to be found, he thought to himself. There was a forced ease, at best, to their interactions.

Julian’s side of their conversation echoed around his head. In the moment, with the urgency of the situation pulling him in what felt like every direction, he’d barely done more than what Ky had called a yeah sorry for whatever kind of response. Asra didn’t - hadn’t seen it that way.

How far Asra was inside his own head didn’t really hit him until he found his way to the jeweled wall barring the library. Twin yaps echoed down the hall, and he looked away towards it. He could make quick work of this, he realized, and wondered, did he really think he’d find what he was looking for in there? Did he want to?

Palm laid flat against the cool stone and feeling the raises and depressions carved so precisely, he felt the current of magic find its path to each gem, and finally, the door gave, shuttered into the wall. As he stepped into the comfortable dimness, broken by softly hued light from the stained window, he felt for a moment like he could breathe. It was so quiet, save for a gaze he quickly saw to be fixed on his own.

“Ilya,” he breathed, transfixed for long moments. The door slid shut behind him, and he twitched in its direction.

“Asra,” he started, but then straightened up as though pulling on a cape of bravado. “What brings you in here? Looking for one of the books we used to read? Maybe something for Ky?”

Asra couldn’t help the dusky pink that rose to his cheeks at such a mention.

“No, I- you. I wanted to find you,” he said.

The momentary twitch as unease shifted into a more characteristic smile on Julian’s face was barely visible in the low light. “Yes? Feeling under the weather? Or maybe Ky-”

Asra pushed down the nerves so quickly he couldn’t stop the sharp rush of words left in their wake. “I wanted to apologize.”

Julian’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply, then looked away. “Apologize? You- already did that? Remember? Right before the end? Yeah- you did that, you don’t need to do it again, it’s fine, we’re all right now, right?”

Asra winced. He could almost feel the unless there’s something else I need to do attached to that. It ached in his chest, that he’d drive Julian to panic like this. It ached almost as badly as missing half of his heart.

“No, I-” he started, crossing the distance perhaps a bit more desperately than he wanted to convey. “I didn’t do it right. I let you take things that were nobody’s fault,” he paused, added lower, “that were mine.”

Julian paled, even more than he already was by nature. “You- you don’t need to do that, it’s not- everything’s fine, right?”

Asra cast his eyes down, sagged against the desk. Julian’s desk.. “You’re about to crawl out of your own skin. I did that. I made us like this.”

Julian was silent, staring ahead with palpable discomfort.

“I was so angry that she’d stay, that she’d stay in a dying city, you know? I thought it was about you. I thought- I’m sorry. I thought, somehow, it was your fault,” He paused a moment, and swallowed hard. “It was about her. It was who she is. You both just wanted to help. You both nearly died for it, and I left. Did- did you know, when we left the city, I was going to let a village run dry of water? It was her. She wanted to help. She made me. I didn’t want to, I just wanted to stay there, with her, forever.”

His eyes were swimming, threatening to spill.

Julian raised a hand, as though to try to comfort him.

“Not now. I already used you enough,” Asra said, turning away. “That’s the other thing-”

“Hey- you don’t have to, you- we weren’t exactly at our best, it was a mess,” Julian cut in.

“No- you apologized to me, I can’t let this be. I wanted you to fill where she left, but I wouldn’t give anything back. You- you loved her too, right?” he asked, finishing voice softer, and turning back to meet mismatched grey eyes.

The first response was nonverbal, a harsh exhale. Julian avoided his eyes, and Asra felt his heart flutter as the moments pounded by.

“In a way, of course, but... You, it was you, but I couldn’t- you loved her so much. I took what I could get.”

The words took long moments to sink in, then Asra took a huffing breath, tucked his head down and ran a hand through his own hair. “Ilya..”

The weight of it hit him. How could he have been so foolish? He bit his own lip. Willfully, he heard in his own head. He didn’t want to see what he didn’t want to address. The dark tendrils of it threatened to pull him down as he retraced his own steps. His own touches. What he’d used Julian for.

The hand from his hair slid down to cover an eye, halfheartedly wipe away the wetness.

“I guess I did, didn’t I.” The words felt so cold in the still air.

“We did what we had to?”

Asra shook his head. He could still feel the heavy magic of the rituals, the darkness he’d let himself sink into, anything to not have to let go, anything to bring her back, when he’d been the one to leave in the first place. “I didn’t have to. I wanted to. It didn’t have to be like this.”

Julian withdrew his hand, hanging in air for those long moments. “I made it so easy though,” he muttered.

“As easy as it is to lose myself for days, weeks, maybe months at a time?” Asra asked, bitterly.

“It’s who you-” Julian began.

“I don’t want to be that anymore,” he bit out, almost a whine. “Look at you- at Nadia- moving on, living! And then there’s Ky- she attracts people with her very nature, she wouldn’t want this- I don’t want this!”

And he looked at himself, in a stasis of his own making. “When it first started, and we’d spend so long just studying, in here-”

He let his hand hover over Julian’s a moment before returning it to the desk’s edge.

“It was good, then,” Julian finished.

“That’s.. It’s not what I was going to say,” Asra began, voice halting. “I was going to say.. I’m sorry, I should have told you. It..” and he paused to breathe, “it was both of you. I just- I didn’t know, I didn’t know how to handle something like that. I still don’t. Don’t know if I know. I just- I didn’t to give in to it, didn’t trust myself. Maybe didn’t trust you.”

He could almost step into each instance of pushing away anything that didn’t fit easily, conveniently into that lazy, sunkissed world of lying in bed with Ky forever, trying to hold paradise in a glass jar on the shelf.

The expressions that crossed Julian’s face in quick succession were ineffable, but he finally settled on curiously peering into Asra’s eyes.

“Really- you aren’t just, you’re not just saying that? You don’t have to.”

It was as easy as that for Asra to tap into his deep fascination and idyllic fantasies, that he pushed to the side again just as quickly. It wasn’t the time.

Despite the tone, he felt that fluttering in his chest, and Julian’s eyes dropped to the soft pale cast that fought to pass through fabric. “Y-you’re not, are you?”

His eyes slipped closed. “I suppose I’m not.”

“But, Ky?” Julian asked.

A faint smile came to Asra’s lips. He had stop himself though from answering so enigmatically as he wanted to. But it came back to the serene knowledge that things were different now. And somehow okay, despite his feeling as though he didn’t know what he was doing. She wasn’t exactly being left by herself while he was here, at the palace. “We have an arrangement,” he said, though it still wasn’t exactly direct, but he imagined Julian may understand. “We’d just have to talk about it.”

For long moments, they were quiet, still, until Asra could see the quiver in Julian’s hands.

“But for now..” he started, almost willing Julian to look at him, “there’s a bit of leeway.” He paused, then continued, “Unless you need some time-”

The expression Julian had fixed him with in the briefest second before closing the distance was all the answer Asra needed.

“Is it really- can I?” he asked.

Asra tilted his head up, a smile speaking of something much darker. “Yes. Ilya? I want you,” he said. Oh, I want you, he realized, even as his vision sharpened, deepened.

The red that flowered across Julian’s face was quickly buried in the crook of Asra’s neck. His breathing was quick, and he murmured something Asra couldn’t understand.

“Hmm?” he asked, more to tease than to really know. That weight had finally lifted enough, at least, for that, though his chest still felt tight, he still felt a bit far away from himself. A bit like the sensation when he was just coming back from his gate, but deeper.

Julian raised his head, skin somehow more red, eyes heavy lidded. “Nothing- nothing, nothing,” he said.

Asra had to hold back from ribbing him. Instead, he brought a hand to align with that sharp jawline. “Can I?” he mirrored, expression playful. He could feel the soft push of breath against his skin, the heat lingering where Julian’s face had been against his neck.

Julian answered with action, drew near with a shyness, eyes sliding shut. Asra connected the motion, felt the tremble against him, and barely registered the impulse when he tugged the other man from leaning against the desk as well, to in against him, body flush.

“Ilya- Ilya I missed you,” he breathed between kisses. Asra knew at least a good part of this was flooding in from his fears being lifted, but this was far from the worst emotion he’d ridden against better advice.

Julian was far less coherent, murmuring Asra’s name as his lips parted and he found himself with a hand so gently yet firmly against Julian’s throat.

“Do you still like-” Asra started, and Julian yelped a yes much more quickly than intended. “And you can still remember-”

“I can tap out,” he gasped, voice desperate already after so little.

“Good,” Asra said, voice turning smokier. He guided with the lightest touches against Julian’s hip to get them turned, Julian’s back to the desk. “Do you think this will still hold us?”

“I’ll- I’ll get a new one if not,” Julian said, pushing aside papers, making room to slide backwards onto the surface.

Asra pushed forward between parted legs to follow warm lips. He had to tilt his head up but didn’t want to lose that feeling long enough to fix the situation, yet. One hand rested on Julian’s thigh, fingers spreading across the tight muscles there, digging in, in his eagerness, using it for leverage, height. Julian’s leg jumped under his hand at the indent of fingertips into already tense muscles. His other hand stroked at the long line of Julian’s pale neck. Pads of his fingers ran down the back, dipped in along every vertebrae. His thumb pressed in along Julian’s jawline, following the line of pulse. The gasp it garnered him sent heat pooling right into his belly. Julian had rested his hands on Asra’s shoulders, but the motion had made him go boneless for that moment. He sneaked glances at the bright flush, the knit of Julian’s brows, the way his lips kept moving so slightly even between kisses.

“C-cheater,” Julian managed. “Supposed to keep your eyes closed.”

“Maybe if I weren’t with someone so captivating..” Asra said, breathless.

He couldn’t see what he looked like, but felt a mess, humidity puffing out his hair and sticking his clothes to him, and yet, to be looked at with the sort of gaze Julian fixed him with? He felt as though he must be carved from marble, gilded.

“So beautiful..” he whispered before pressing in again, lips feeling cold without that touch, conscious of what he could feel against his stomach, straining under restraint of fabric, as he pulled Julian more in reach.

He realized, perhaps, he liked Julian’s lips even better when they were against his own than the dark memory that slid along the edges of his mind. It gave him an idea, though, to ease into this, and he broke the kiss, catching those eyes in his own for a smoldering moment. It was such a fragile smile, so hopeful, but on the edge of being dashed. He wouldn’t do that, this time.

Asra’s hand pushed Julian’s head back to give him better access to trail firm, lingering, wet kisses down the tendons of his neck, still using the other hand to keep him close. Fingers found their way into Asra’s hair, and the air was filled with hitched breathing, barely-there sounds of desperation from Julian.

Asra snaked that hand up and over Julian’s chin, pressing the fingers between his lips while he kissed lower. Oh, that feeling of lips closing, sucking, tongue washing across the tips, pressing between them- Asra stifled a gasp. He withdrew them, dragging the wetness down to meet his other hand, which was steadily undoing buttons and finery, surely from Nadia. He indulged himself, sucked hard towards the center of Julian’s chest. Hard enough that it would darken, already was in the hazy light. Fingers dug into his clothes, the grip in his hair tightened.

“A-Asra-” he gasped.

“Ilya?” he responded, looking up, while settling more onto his knees, and letting his fingers get to work on those trousers. That same playful smile was more devious as fabric gave way to skin, and he urged Julian’s hips forward, up, to let him slide those pants down.

“D-don’t have to do that-” Julian said, biting his lip as red threatened to eclipse his face.

“How else would I get your cheeks to match your eye?” Asra toyed, letting his fingers dance around the situation, not engaging, just stroking circles that almost didn’t even land on the skin of his hips.

He could see the goosebumps rise underneath his touch.

“Saying something like that- I could almost think-” Julian started as Asra pulled off one boot, then the other, touch lingering. In a quick moment, he had those pants shucked the rest of the way down. “-think you were trying to get a rise out of me.”

One hand on Julian’s knee, and the other just barely touching the hollow of his hip, Asra let his eyes drift level, then back up. “I think I already have.”

Julian had opened his mouth to reply, and Asra cut off any further words with lips slipping against his achingly hard cock.

“O-ohh-” he gasped, and Asra watched through pale lashes as his eyes slipped closed. His fingers pressed in so hard against the surface of the desk that Asra was quite sure there would be nail marks.

He made a small hmm noise, finding it almost too much to take down, and not even yet fully hard. Julian sucked in air hard at the sight, then more as with a bit of a wet mmn, Asra had his lips pressed to the base, violet eyes then sliding shut, and he was in his own world, hazy with Julian’s absolutely wanton vocalizations. Were his mouth not so full, his lips would have quirked up at it. So this was what it felt like on the other side. He hadn’t been terribly giving, in an arrangement previously only made of not knowing how to say, I don’t know how to handle this.

He felt salt against his tongue, eyes crinkling at the corners, and made a little mmn sound as he pulled his lips back, felt every inch he’d be taking back down again in juuust a moment, and tuned in to that loud groan. Julian’s hand was in his own hair as though using it to keep from just forcing Asra’s head back down along his shaft. At the touch of curls to his nose, he rubbed his tongue against the length as much as space would allow, bobbed a bit without rising again to the tip. He pulled in his cheeks, feeling his lips tighten, and the sharp whine that drew forth as he dragged his mouth up maybe half way, then plunged back down again as far as he could. That last bit of length had made this arduous.

“Aasra,” Julian called, voice breathless, and Asra could feel the tremors in his legs as he used a hand on one to steady himself, brought fingers of the other to pump along the gap he could barely bring his lips to reach. Asra could feel that tremble even in his mouth, and drew back, feeling wetness trail behind.

“Close, so soon?” he asked, eyes dusky and, if Julian’s returned gaze was anything to go by, terribly inviting.

“A-Asra- please-” Julian murmured, gaze shooting to the side, embarrassed.

“Oh- if you’re going to ask-” he started, cutting himself off by letting his tongue circle the head so pointedly, as though he was licking the flavor from a treat. It wasn’t even conscious teasing, though he had truly enjoyed hearing his name in such a tone. To hear his name falling from Julian’s lips like that, and actually hear it, instead of being so wrapped up in himself to let it fall dully to the ground as one more distraction from what he was after..

As he plunged his lips down again, and again, feeling that quiver against his tongue, pulling his lips tight and over his teeth to get the most sensation he could, and then a thought came to mind. He brought that hand back, fingers circling that exposed sliver of cock, and felt tingling heat flow through him, trace into the tight ring of his lips, leave intensifying warmth and magic as they pulled up to the tip, and back down. The response was immediate, and one of Julian’s legs found its way down his back to pull him in more, a heady cry tearing from his lips.

Asra willed himself to sink down again until his nose pressed right in to the firmness of skin, a brief moment, before his throat felt unsteady in him, but, the rapid breath it drew out, the hand that laid so tentatively on his shoulder, begging in its presence at all? Those got it in his head that it was worth it to pull back for long enough the feeling could settle, then drive forward again, cock hitting further back than he’d thought he could ever manage. Again, he forced himself, Julian’s panting, cries feeling distant in his focus, but all the same, making that wobbly feeling so much easier to push past, even as he felt his eyes wet from the tension, lack of breath. He could hear his own name filling the air, strained fingers tracing his jawline, and a stuttered, clumsy warning that he ignored.

He didn’t even taste it at first as release sputtered straight down his throat, and he pulled back, then getting drops on his tongue. He felt so dazed, and yet so deeply pleased. Wetness around his eyes was cooling, drying, and Julian’s hand lifted his head. His knees ached pleasantly as he stood, swallowing heavily, a bit unsteady on his feet. Asra leaned a bit, one hand finding his place on each of Julian’s thighs, and he let a smile crack across his face, a bit cheeky in nature as he dragged his eyes up from that still-hard cock to meet Julian’s own.

“Ah- you.. Ever-” Julian started, but speech faltered.

Asra left that grin firmly in place as he answered, “Probably not as often.” As you didn’t need to be added to the end of that sentence. Though he felt as I should have was more appropriate, at this point.

Julian pressed forward, trying to catch Asra’s lips.

“D-don’t- you’ll-” Asra started, turning his head down.

“I’ve had yours,” he responded lightly, pursuing until he could corner that smile that grew darker, more mischievous, even as they met. “Besides,” he murmured between kisses, “I know most of it skipped your mouth.”

Asra laughed, even against the repeated press of lips against his own. He could feel his own ache, that tightness of clothes he’d love to be rid of, but ignored it for now - had been ignoring it for some time now. He just let himself get lost there in Julian’s lips for some long moments, hands pressing in against chest bared to the still air. He felt drunk from the sensations, lost. It was so different from the detachment of the last time they’d touched like this.

Julian’s hand drifted from such a chaste spot on his back where he’d been just keeping Asra in close, to start to slide over the curve of his hip, slide down, before Asra caught it in his own, grip tight.

“No,” he murmured, “my apology, not yours.”

If he’d thought Julian couldn’t get more red, he was swiftly disproven. The tips of his ears were bright as Asra brought that hand to his own mouth to suck at his fingers. He could feel Julian tremble in his mouth, under his touch. His lips quirked into a private smile, then eyes locked with Julian’s.

“Ohh- Asra,” he breathed. “You- ah, you didn’t have to.” His chest rose and fell in great heaves.

“No.. but I wanted to,” Asra answered, lacing his fingers with Julian’s before pressing forward for another kiss, this one subdued compared to the others - softer, a bit slower. “Let me just have this..”

Julian smiled against his lips right up until he pulled back, couldn’t quite meet Asra’s eyes at first.

“You know, whatever happens in that conversation you’ve got to have- and, you, ah, you don’t have to, I mean- I’m- just this was-”

Asra cut him off with a thumb pressed to his lips, other fingers pressing in against his jawline in a deceptively firm grip. “Ilya, let me worry about it. You can do that for me, can’t you?”

It was hard to tell iris from pupil as Julian’s eyes stared back. He moved his head in a shallow nod, and as Asra removed his finger, he replied, “O-of course, I wouldn’t dream of-”

Asra tugged his head forward. “Good.” His words were firm, but in such a contrast to the barely-restrained grin. He pressed another kiss in quickly before dropping back to his knees and beginning with the re-dressing, tugging trousers back up Julian’s legs. His eyes wouldn’t meet Asra’s except in stolen glances, especially at the touch of lips to his knee before it was covered again in cloth. Asra’s hand was so light, fleeting as he felt himself tucked back into clothes, muffled a groan and tried desperately to think of something truly revolting.

“Foot?” Asra asked, boot in his hand.

Julian sucked in breath, obliging. Asra’s fingers dug into his calf, pulled the leather over his foot and up his leg, then fastened at the thigh. He caught that faraway look in Julian’s eyes.

“Next?” he asked, taking Julian’s foot in hand and rubbing his fingers into the arch for a moment. He savored the hitch in breath, then slid the boot on, same as the other. Reaching the thing, he stood, let his hand rest there. Julian’s eyes were almost blank, and Asra returned his hand to his jawline, but this time in a barely-there touch to bring him back down to earth.

“Ilya, you’re not the same man you were, back then.. I want you to believe I’m not either,” he whispered, watching his eyes come back into focus. “I want you to believe, I wanted this, and you, and you deserve to be wanted.”

He didn’t respond, somewhat slack-jawed for a moment, lips parted, as his eyes just drank Asra in, almost a delayed refractory period.

When he did speak, it was low. “If this is what I can get.. I’ll never have enough.”


End file.
